A/N:

hello and welcome to the latest installation of the texting universe (If You Can't Say Anything Nice)! though it is not needed to understand most of this story, it's just better if you've read it :D

this story has been marinating in my 'ideas' document for freakin' ever. it will be FLUFFY. it will be FUNNY. it will be sickeningly HEART-WARMING. i do NOT know how long this will be, and i do not have it plotted out very much at all. enjoy the mess that is produced by my brain.

ahem. no beta we die like men. all mistakes are my own. enjoy the storyyyyy.

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Once in a Lifetime Opportunity

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Chapter 1: Boundaries

"I swear to god, Tom, you don't know how to give me space when I need it!"

Harry smacked his hand against the door frame to emphasize his point. They were having a row—their first row, actually—in the doorway of Tom's dorm room. Harry felt a bit bad, because he knew Tom cared about public appearances more than anything, but he was just so annoyed, irritated to the point of absolute frustration, and he knew the only way to make Tom listen was by dragging it out into a semi-public space.

"Harry," said Tom, expression stiff. "You're not listening to what I'm saying—"

"Oh my god," Harry said. "Ohhhh my god. Okay. We are not going to do this right now. I am going to go home, and you are going to stay here, and we are talk about this tomorrow once we've both calmed down."

Tom didn't say anything for a moment. He merely stood there with his hands clenched into white fists, his face pale save for the two splotches of colour high on his cheeks. His jaw was tense, his eyes staring at some point over Harry's shoulder.

Harry relented, reaching out for one of Tom's hands, prying the fist open and smoothing out the fingers. "It's okay," he said. "We'll talk through this tomorrow, alright? I promise. But I really do need to set a boundary here."

"Fine," Tom said, still sounding angry, though his mouth twitched, softening slightly as Harry ran a thumb over the back of his hand.

"Okay, good," Harry said. "Good bye for now. I will not be checking my phone for messages for the next couple of hours."

"Fine," Tom said again, and so Harry dropped his hand and walked away, resisting the urge to cave and glance back over his shoulder.

It was just one day. Less than a day. He could do less than a day without Tom, and tomorrow they would talk things out and set a proper boundary, and things would be perfect again.

Tom dutifully refrained from texting Harry for at least thirty minutes. Harry arrived back at his parents' home with one (1) notification on his phone.

At least Tom's learning, Harry thought to himself. Then his phone buzzed again. Somewhat, he added.

He went straight to his room and dumped his phone on his bedside table, and then threw his entire body onto his bed in a flop. At least tomorrow was Friday. Harry would only have one late afternoon class to suffer through, and then he would go and see Tom. If things went badly, then they'd have the entire weekend to cool off before they tried again.

And they would be trying again, because Harry liked Tom a lot, cared about him, and he wasn't about to give up after one stupid fight. Tom just needed to learn that there were boundaries that he couldn't just bowl his way over. Like when Harry asked for space, he meant it. And when he didn't want to talk about something, he meant it.

Tom was just… overbearing, at times. He was larger than life in a lot of ways, and usually that was fine, because Harry enjoyed being swept along by Tom's enthusiasm. But sometimes Harry just needed to decompress, and Tom wasn't great at letting him do that

So what this had really been was a bunch of little things piled up on top of each other, which had resulted in Harry losing his temper. Which wasn't really fair to Tom, either, because Harry had just been bottling all of this up to begin with when he should have said something sooner.

On the side table, Harry's phone buzzed again. Maybe it was Ron or Hermione, he thought blearily. But he didn't really want to talk to either of them at the moment. Ugh. Harry reached over for his phone and shut it off. No more thinking about this for now. He would get on his computer later and tell Ron and Hermione he was taking the night off. All of his homework and stuff could wait until he wasn't so drained and exhausted.

"Harry?" It was his mum at the door.

Harry made himself sit up. "Yeah?"

"You're home early today." She squinted at him for a moment, likely taking in his sulky face and the way he was scrunched up on his bed. "Anything I can help with?"

"No," he said. "Tom was just being… Tom. I'm going to talk to him about it tomorrow."

"Okay." Mum came over and patted him on the shoulder. "If you need me to give him a talking to—"

"Mum," Harry protested. "I'm fine, really. I can handle it. I just need some space, okay?"

"Okay. Love you."

Harry received another pat, this time on the top of his head, and then his mum left, shutting the door behind her. Flopping back down, Harry ground his teeth together before releasing his breath in a deep sigh. It would be okay. He'd spend tonight with his family, and then he would think of how to explain things to Tom tomorrow.

Tom was just so difficult to figure out. Though Harry knew that Tom had feelings, Tom was simply rubbish at talking about them. Which was fine, because there were other ways to show people you cared about them other than saying it, but Tom was a stoic type of person, which made it hard to guess what he was thinking, especially when he was upset.

Sometimes, Harry wished he could get just a glimpse of what went on in his boyfriend's head. There had to be some kind of explanation for all of the posturing and the compliment wrangling. He only had to hope that it would all make sense to him someday.

Tom scowled down at his phone. Harry had said that he wouldn't be checking for messages. Tom knew that. But that didn't stop him from looking at his text history anyways, hoping that Harry would cave and look at the apology Tom had so painstakingly typed out.

But there was no little 'seen at' at the bottom, which meant that Tom could only mindlessly cycle through the rest of his social media, wondering what Harry was up to.

Open Instagram, refresh the feed, go to his profile, scroll through the photos of him and Harry together. Close Instagram. Open Snapchat—

With a loud noise of frustration, Tom dropped his phone down onto his bed. Tomorrow. Harry had promised tomorrow. But he didn't think he could handle it if he saw Harry posting anything anywhere. Not while he was here alone and feeling so terrible.

It was selfish, sure, to wish that Harry was experiencing the same misery that he was, but he wanted it, he wanted it so badly. To know that Harry cared enough to have the same terrible aching feeling in his chest at the thought of their relationship ending. Not that it would end. Because Tom had apologized, and he was going to win Harry back over.

Tom rubbed at his face. He was sorry, wasn't he? He hadn't meant to make Harry upset. Maybe he should get a second opinion.

Picking his phone up again, Tom sent off a number of texts to Lucius. His friend was always talking about how 'high maintenance' Narcissa was or some such. Harry certainly wasn't anything like that, but perhaps Lucius had some ideas on how to grovel that Tom could twist to his own purposes.

A few minutes later, when no response was received, Tom added a few more texts with some other questions.

Then, a few minutes after that, he added a few more.

Then, maybe twenty minutes after his first message, Tom got a response.

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Lucius: I am in CLASS right now I will answer you later!

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Annoying. Tom dumped his phone down again and rolled onto his side, staring at the wall. Maybe he could work on his case study assignment for his business management class. Maybe he could read over his article submission for the school paper. Maybe—

His phone rang, and Tom sat up, snatching the device up and glancing at the screen. It was Luna 'Loony' Lovegood, who was his partner for his physics lab. With a sigh, Tom answered the call.

"Hello, this is Tom speaking."

"Hi Tom!" Luna's voice was very soft, even over the phone, and Tom had to press his ear closer to hear her. "I was wondering if you had time to go over our lab report later this weekend?"

Tom pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sure. What time?"

"Does Saturday work? Ten o'clock? I want to make sure I have time for my morning walk."

"That's fine," Tom said briskly. "Sounds fantastic. I will book a study room and text you the location. Have a nice day, Luna." And then he hung up without saying goodbye.

Tom's phone buzzed again. This time it was Lucius, only Tom no longer felt like talking to anyone. He just wanted to stew in his misery.

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Tom: Too late, idiot. Go away and leave me alone until tomorrow

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Then he shut his phone off and set it aside on his nightstand.

The worst part about all this was that he wasn't exactly sure what it was that he'd done wrong, only that Harry was mad with him. Harry was… he was normally very sweet. Kind and patient and understanding. And so they'd never had any problems like this before, because though Tom could be a bit blunt at times, Harry always took it in stride. But this was unchartered territory, which Tom did not like one bit.

He had already carefully crafted an apology for his behaviour, making sure to point out that he hadn't intended any ill will and asking what he could do to ameliorate the situation. But what if that wasn't enough?

Tom wished he could just dump himself inside of Harry's head and retrieve all the answers he needed. How to make Harry happy. How to be the perfect boyfriend. He only had to hope that it would all make sense to him someday.

That night, the both of them went to bed separately, tired and a little bit lonely, phone messages unread.

The next morning, Tom woke up to someone knocking at his door. He opened his eyes, suddenly disoriented, and sat up. The first thing he noted was that he wasn't wearing a shirt, which had certainly not been how he'd gone to bed last night.

Secondly, he noted that he was in Harry's room. He could see the corkboard covered in photographs and sticky notes. He could see the pride flag tacked up next to it. For one delirious moment, he wondered if he had somehow gotten himself drunk and wound up spending the night at Harry's house after seducing him.

Tom blindly patted the space next to him. The bed was empty, and the other side of it was cold. The knocking at the door grew louder.

"Honey? It's for you—it's Tom."

The door swung open, revealing Lily Evans-Potter. Harry's mother. She was smiling, and did not look at all confused by the fact that her son's boyfriend was sitting shirtless in his bed. She was holding a cordless phone out towards him.

"I think he's come to his senses, if you ask me," Lily said, a mischievous smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

Tom took the phone, numb, and watched as Lily left the room. Then he held the phone up to his ear.

"Hello?" he asked, and his voice sounded strange.

"Tom!" came the voice on the other end. "Is that you? What the fuck? What the fuck?"

It was too early in the morning to be this loud. "What is wrong with you?" Tom said right back, irritated. Where was Harry? What was going on? This was like some kind of horrible fever dream.

"Look in the mirror, you bastard!"

Tom forced himself to his feet and over to the vanity and—

Oh, come on. No way. This had to be a dream. Tom lifted the phone back up. "This is a dream, right?" he asked. Asked with Harry's voice. Because he was Harry.

His reflection—black messy hair and green eyes and golden, tanned skin—stared back at him.

"If it is a dream, I'm going to kill you when I wake up," Harry said, and now Tom recognized the voice, if only because he'd recorded himself enough times in the past to be able to tell whose voice it was.

Tom turned away from the mirror, disturbed. Then his eyes fell upon the clock on Harry's nightstand. It was eight thirty in the morning.

"Harry," he said, voice urgent. "Harry listen to me."

"Yes?" It was odd to hear his own voice sounding… almost afraid? Like he was afraid of the answer. Tom had never, ever sounded like anything of the sort, which made their current situation even more surreal.

"You have to wash up and get dressed. Right. Now. And then grab my school binder and my laptop. Everything should already be inside of my bookbag."

"Okay, okay." Tom heard the phone get switched to the other ear, followed by the rustle of fabric. "And then you want me to come over?" Harry asked.

"No," Tom said slowly, drawing the syllables out, breathing through his nose. "I need you to go to class for me. I have 'Introduction to Psychology' at nine am sharp."

Silence.

And then: "Tom, you have got to be fucking with me."

A/N:

harry: CRISIS MODE? tom please tell me what to do

tom: okay harry, first step is go to my morning class and sit through attendance